


We Are Legion

by HuntersMoon47



Series: Wait For Me To Come Home [7]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:30:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuntersMoon47/pseuds/HuntersMoon47
Summary: Danica does what she wants and wakes up the Geth.Then stops putting of Alchera and realizes she just can't do it on her own.





	1. Danica

“We need better equipment to fight the Reapers,” Miranda argued. “An intact geth would be invaluable to Cerberus cyber weapons division.”

“I’ll have to disagree on that,” Jacob said. “I saw enough of these things on Eden Prime. Space it.”

Shepard didn’t want either of those things. That geth...it wasn’t like other geth. It had spoken to her. Addressed her by name and rank. It had a piece of N7 armor welded to its body. Something was different about this geth. They were missing something.

“Cerberus has a long-standing cash bounty for an intact geth. I assure you, the reward is significant.”

Danica crossed her arms and studied the hologram of the geth hovering over the conference table.

“I want to know why it has a piece of N7 armor attached to its body,” she said, ignoring both their ideas for now.

“Battle trophy maybe?” Jacob offered. “Would a machine care about that?”

“No,” Miranda answered immediately. “Trophies imply emotions that AIs don’t have. I doubt it’s more than just a convenient field repair.”

“I’ve killed hundreds of these things, but I’ve never had the chance to talk to one before,” Danica mused, still ignoring the two Cerberus agents. “This one...this one tried to communicate with us. Hell, it probably saved our lives. Why?”

Miranda turned to her, eyebrows pulled tight in concern.

“Reactivating the geth is a risk. If you do so, it should be for humanity’s best interest and not your curiosity.”

“I still think our ‘best interests’ involved an airlock,” Jacob said.

“I’m not deciding one way or the other until I know what we’ve got here,” Danica said. “I want to start it up. Interrogate it.”

“Shepard, if we activate it, there is no guarantee we can deactivate it again, Miranda worried.

“Bullets can,” Jacob retorted. God, these two drove her crazy sometimes.

“That is not what I -”

“Thank you - both of you,” Danica cut the argument short. “For your recommendation. I’ve made my decision.”

“Tali is going to freak out when she hears about this,” Jacob mumbled.

“Let me handle Tali,” Danica said. “Now, let’s talk about this Reaper IFF.”

 

Twenty minutes later, when she stepped off the elevator on the crew deck, Garrus was waiting for her. He did not look impressed.

“Word sure does travel fast,” she said as she headed for the AI core. Garrus fell into step beside her.

“You’re not going to interrogate it, are you? You're going to ask it to help us.” He asked, ignoring her remark. Danica didn’t answer. She had no problem misleading Miranda or Jacob for a while, but she wouldn’t lie to Garrus. “I saw the way you looked at it. Fuck, Shepard, it’s a geth.”

“It’s different from the other Geth,” she said. She nodded to Chakwas as the two of them passed her. His hand on her shoulder made her pause. With a sigh, she turned to face him.

“The N7 armor could mean nothing,” he said quietly.

“It could mean everything,” she whispered back. “It knew me, Garrus. It knew my name. It saved us. Does that sound like any Geth we’ve ever seen?”

“This is dangerous, Danica.” He so rarely used her first name, it made her heart thunder in his chest. It made her want to do things to him that made him say it over and over again. It also meant he was worried. Really worried.

“I’ve got EDI ready to counteract any hacking attempts. And I’m armed,” she tried to reassure him. It didn’t seem to work. His brow plates pulled tight, gray eyes stern. Danica sighed. “You want to come with me?”

“Want is a strong word for it,” he grumbled. “But it would be smarter to have back up. Just in case.”

“Fine. Just, keep your pistol holstered. If we go in guns drawn it will be on the defensive.” She waited for Garrus to nod and check his clip before opening the door. At the end of the room, laying on a workbench was the inactive Geth. She and Garrus approached it in silence, the red glow of the light above the machine giving the room an eerie glow.

Danica paused once she reached the table. She could sense Garrus standing behind her, tense and on edge. Her heart raced. This could be the worst idea she’d ever had. And that was saying something.

She sucked in a deep breath and punched the command code into her Omni-tool.

The force field between her and the geth activated.

“I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls,” EDI chimed in over the ship’s comms. “I am prepared to resist any hacking attempt.”

Another deep breath. Danica punched in the command to activate the machine.

She watched closely, poised on the balls of her feet, hand only inches from her pistol as the machine woke. The light that was it’s...eye flickered on, twitched from side to side. Danica took a careful step backwards when it began to sit up. Then it slid off the workbench and face Danica as it stood up. Silence hung in the air.

“Can you understand me?” Danica asked, forcing her voice to be calm and even.

“Yes,” It answered.

“Are you going to attack me?” She asked.

“No.”

She glanced back at Garrus. He looked skeptical. Danica turned her attention back to the machine.

“You said my name aboard the Reaper. Have we met?”

“We know of you,” It answered.

“That’s unsettling,” Garrus mumbled behind her. Despite the tension - or maybe because of it - she almost started laughing.

“You mean, I’ve fought a lot of geth?” Danica continued.

“We have never met,” It said. Danica shook her head.

“No, you and I haven’t. But I’ve met other geth.”

“We are all geth and we have not met you.”

Danica bit her lip and studied the machine for a moment before pacing. She’d heard of the “hive” mentality, but if the geth were all “one” then it should have met her. Sort of. The machine moved parallel to her, mimicking her pacing.

“You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Human. Fought Heretics. Killed by Collectors. Rediscovered on the Old Machine.”

Danica stopped walking, trying to sort out waht it had said.

“Old Machine? You mean the Reaper,” she asked.

“Repear.” It confirmed. “A superstitious title originating with the Protheans. We call those entities the Old Machines.”

“Okay.” Danica nodded, mulling over her next question. “You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

“Extranet data sources. Insecure broadcasts. All organic data sent out is received. We watch you.”

“That is very unsettling,” Garrus rumbled from behind her again. The geth’s attention flickered to him.

“Vakarian, Garrus. Former C-Sec. Archangel. Second to Shepard Commander,” It said. “He is protective of you.”

“Yeah, he gets that way,” Danica said, drawing It’s attention back to her. “Do you watch me specifically, or do you watch all organics?”

“Yes.”

“Which.”

“Both.”

Danica shook her head, trying not to get frustrated. She tried a different line of questioning.

“What do you mean, “heretics?” She asked.

“Geth build our own future,” the machine explained. “The heretics asked the Old Machines to give them the future. They are no longer part of us. We were studying the Old Machine’s hardware to protect our future.”

“So, are the Reapers a threat to you too?” Danica asked, trying not to get too excited. If the geth were divided, there was a chance she could convince the ‘good’ ones to fight with her.

“Yes.”

“Why would they attack other machines?”

“We are different from them,” It answered. “Outside their plans.”

Danica sucked in a deep breath and glanced at Garrus again. He looked less tense but was clearly still wary.

“What future are the geth building,” he asked the machine.

“Ours.”

“Helpful,” Garrus groaned. Danica sorted and looked back to the geth.

“Will anyone else be affected by whatever it is you’re doing?” She asked.

“If they involve themselves, they will.”

Danica almost laughed.

“So, you aren’t allied with the Reapers?” She asked pushing away her amusement. This was too important to be distracted by AI logic that was certainly not meant to be funny.

“We oppose the heretics,” It said, stepping closer to the forcefield. If Danica didn’t know better, she’d said there was passion in the machine’s voice. “We oppose the Old Machines. Shepard - Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard - Commander opposes the heretics. Cooperation furthers mutual goals.”

“Are you asking to work with us?” Danica heard Garrus rumble behind her but she didn’t look at him.

“Yes,” the Geth said. Danica paused for just a moment before deactivating the forcefield. Behind her, she heard Garrus move toward her, no doubt ready to jump to her aid if need be. But the geth remained silent.

“What should I call you?” Danica asked.

“Geth,” It said. Danica grinned.

“I mean you, specifically,” she clarified.

“We are all geth.”

“Ooookay. What is the individual in front of me called?” She tried again.

“There is no individual,” It said. “We are geth. There are currently 1,183 programs active within this platform.”

“Oh boy,” Danica sighed. EDI’s blue interface popped up at her station.

“My name is Legion, for we are many,” the AI quoted. Danica smiled.

“I like it,” she said. “May we call you Legion?”

“Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We will integrate into Normandy.”

Danica stuck her hand out to shake Legion’s. He mimicked her, but clearly didn’t know what to do.

“Welcome aboard, Legion.” She grasped his hand and shook it firmly. “Why don’t you stay in here for now? EDI can assist you. While I notify the crew. There will be some apprehension about having a geth on board.”

Legion nodded.

“Considering past encounters with heretics’, apprehension is expected. We wish to be allies. We will stay here until the crew is better acclimated.”

Danica nodded and turned to leave, Garrus once again falling into step beside her.

“Apprehension is putting it a bit lightly, don’t you think?” He said when the door slid close behind them. Tali was walking toward them.

“Yes,” the young Quarian said. Danica sighed.

“Tali, we talked about this,” she said. Tali crossed her arms.

“Talking about it does not change the danger, Shepard.”

“Listen, Tali, Garrus - I get it, okay?” She looked at both of them. “I fought the geth, just like you, but this one - these ones - Legion, is different. You both have to admit that.”

“Yes, but…” Tali started to argue but Danica held up her hand, stopping her.

“I need you to trust me,” she said, looking at both of them with her ‘Commander’ face. “I know it’s a risk but it’s a calculated one. We’re going to need all the help we can get - _all_ of it - and if we have a chance to ally with the Geth, we _have_ to take it. The entire galaxy is going to have to set aside prejudice and work with former enemies if we are going to have any chance of beating the Reapers. And we have to be the ones to show them how. Understood?”

“Yes, Shepard,” Tali said quietly. Danica glanced at Garrus who nodded his consent. Tali slipped away, leaving Garrus and Danica alone in the med bay. Garrus was about to say something when Joker’s voice came over comms.

“Sorry to interrupt, Commander, but we’re orbiting Alchera.”

Fuck. She’d forgotten about Alchera.

“What is he talking about?” Garrus asked, eyes wide. Danica looked away and swallowed hard. Her stomach flipped.

“Hackett asked me a while ago to go back and recover tags. Alliance vessels in the Traverse draw too much attention,” she explained. “I’ve been...putting it off.”

“Shepard…”

“It’s fine, Garrus. I need to do this.” Need to but didn’t want to. Still she’d put it off long enough. The closer they got to Collectors, the less time she had. Those men and women, their families, deserved this.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Garrus said quietly. Danica looked up at him.

“Yeah, I do,” she whispered. “I came back from what happened here, they didn’t. The least I can do is recover their tags.”

Garrus was silent for a moment.

“Okay,” he rumbled. “But if you need me, I’m here.”

  


She really shouldn’t be this cold. Her armor was designed to protect against the cold and Alchera wasn’t cold enough to deplete hier life support systems. Still, she couldn’t stop shivering. She knew it was all in her head but she couldn’t get warm.

Pieces of the Normandy - her home - were scattered all over. She found Pressley’s data pad and she cried. An hour passed - she’d placed the marker for the memorial, found her helmet and recovered seventeen tags. Seventeen of the twenty.

Another half an hour passed. Her chest grew tighter and tighter. She got colder and colder. There were three tags still out there. Three people she couldn’t find them. Three people she failed.

This had been a mistake. Danica Shepard could do almost anything in the galaxy, but she couldn’t do this. Not alone.

She clicked on her comms.

“Garrus, I need you.”


	2. Garrus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can do anything - take on the Reapers, hang up on the Council, come back from the dead - but she can't do this. She can't dig the tags of her crew out of the snow on the planet where they died. Where she died and should have stayed. She can't do it. At least not alone...

She really shouldn’t be this cold. Her armor was designed to protect against the chill and the temperature on Alchera wasn’t low enough to deplete her life support systems. Still, she couldn’t stop shivering. She knew it was all in her head but she couldn’t get warm. 

Pieces of the Normandy - her home - were scattered all over. She found Pressley’s datapad and cried. An hour passed - she’d placed the marker for the memorial, found her helmet and recovered seventeen tags. Seventeen of the twenty. 

Another half an hour passed. Her chest grew tighter and tighter. She got colder and colder. There were three tags still out there. Three people she couldn’t find. Three people she failed. Again.

This had been a mistake. Danica Shepard could do almost anything in the galaxy, but she couldn’t do this. Not alone.

She clicked on her comms. 

“Garrus, I need you.”

________________________________-

 

He found her on her knees in a snow bank. A light dusting of snow covered her shoulders. She’d been there for awhile. Next to her in the snow was a torn apart N7 helmet. His stomach dropped when he saw the “SHEP…” on the side. It was the helmet she’d been wearing that day. The day she'd died. Here, on this planet.

He didn’t bother holding back the rumble of his subharmonics - protectiveness, anger, sadness - as he knelt down in front of her. 

“Shepard,” he said quietly. Underneath her mask, blue eyes slowly lifted to look at him. He could see the glimmer of unshed tears in the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find them,” she whispered. Her voice was tight and breathy, like she wasn’t breathing well. She held up a clear container full of silver dog tags like the set she had framed in her quarters. “There is supposed to be twenty. Twenty crew members died. I can only find seventeen tags. I’ve looked for over an hour. I can’t leave them behind.”

Garrus wordlessly pulled up his omnitool and adjusted his visor settings. He had to blink a few times to adjust his eyes. Then he stood up and offered his hand to Shepard, who grasped onto it and let her pull her to her feet. 

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk a grid. My visor should pick up any metal buried in the snow.”

They walked in silence for awhile. Garrus could feel Shepard shaking next to him; could hear her shivering breaths. This was not a side of Danica Shepard he was accustomed to seeing. This - gathering the dog tags, being on the planet she’d been recovered from - it was eating her up inside. If anyone knew how bad survivor's guilt could get, it was him. Shepard hadn’t let him succumb to his sorry and he be damned if he was going to let her.

“Remember the time Wolbach and Plants were keeping a scare count?” He asked, glancing down at Shepard as they walked. She snorted a small laugh.

“Oh god,” she said. “That went on for months. Remember when Wolbach hid in the trash compactor? She made Joker help turn it off and help her hack security so she could see when Plants was coming and then jumped out to scare her?”

“Or the time Plants hid in the fridge and convinced Ash to help her get Wolbach when she came on to day shift?” Garrus prompted. This time Shepard laughed fully and deeply. And when she leaned over to pick up the dog tag Garrus pointed out, she smiled. 

“Sidik,” she said quietly. “He used to draw funny faces on the boxes of food in the pantry. Oh man, the things I let these guys get away with. If Anderson had known; or Hackett?”

“Ah, it was all in good fun. It kept morale high,” Garrus said, pointing out another tag. “But they knew when to get serious. You do good work with your teams, Shep. You set high expectations and hold people to them, but you also just let us be...people. It’s why your teams love you; why they’re loyal to you.”

Shepard looked up at him. 

“Yeah?” She asked. 

“Yeah,” He reassured her. “Speaking of pranks, I was thinking about having EDI help us pull one on Joker.”

“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “EDI plays an evil AI and convinces Joker she’s taking over the galaxy?”

“You read my mind,” he chuckled. He was grateful he had his helmet on to hide the ridiculous smile he had on his face as they continued their search. She had asked for him; said she needed him. She’d confided in him, trusted him, been so unusually open and vulnerable with him. Garrus had always known he needed her, but to see her need of him was...exhilarating. And to be the one to bring her smile back today. It gave him an odd feeling of weightlessness. 

They finally found the last dog tag and headed back to the shuttle. Garrus had been dropped off, so he climbed into Shepard’s shuttle. They were just clearing atmo when Shepard reached for his hand. 

“Thank you, Garrus,” she said, not looking at him. “Not just for coming down here but for...giving them back to me. Now when I think of them, I’ll remember the good things - the fun, the pranks - not the bad. That means a lot to me, that you did that for me.”

“I’d do anything for you, Shepard.” The words escaped him before he could even think and he immediately wished he could suck them back in. Until Shepard looked at him, eyes wide with wonder and something else he couldn’t quite name. He’d seen it in her eyes before briefly but could never quite get a read on it. Or at least, he tried not to, worried that he'd see what he wanted instead of what she was saying.

“I know,” she whispered, chewing her lip. “Sometimes I can’t quite figure out why.”

_ Because I love you. _

The thought rang clear as day in his mind. Thankfully, he was able to maintain control over his mouth this time around. Still, he couldn’t leave her without an answer. 

“You know why,” he said in a low, rumbly voice, trying to not give too much away. Shepard’s breath caught in her chest, her eyes never leaving his despite the warnings from EDI that they were nearing the Normandy. She studied his face intently, his helmet now off and the twitches and movements of his plates visible and readable. He didn’t try to mask anything - she’d been honest with him; he should do the same for her. Finally, she nodded slowly. 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Me too.”


End file.
